Fuji X-Pro1

I’m currently in Cologne, Germany speaking at Photokina. Fuji brought me out to speak about the X cameras that I’m so dang in love with. I haven’t really hit the floor just yet but I saw a freaking helicopter parked in one corner of the trade show. You know. A helicopter. Might as well. What this trade show needs is more helicopters. I’ve been on the road for two months and it’s been a hell of a good time bouncing around this lovely planet of ours. I’ve had the pleasure and honor to meet a number of truly passionate and talented people. I’ve had some soul searching late night talks over bad food and good wine. I’ve seen some things that have me so inspired to create new work that I’m paralyzed not knowing what I should do first. I flew ATL – DTW – AMS – CGN and my bag went ATL – DTW – ATL. That was awesome....

I’ve had the Fuji X-Pro1 since April 2012 and like anything it takes a while to really get to know it. So for this reason I wanted to add some further thoughts to my first blog post, the review of the X-Pro1. I have been impressed with the image quality of this camera from day 1, in fact beyond impressed, blown away sometimes. The resolution and detail that the sensor can record is really something else. Low light (high ISO) capability is really great. I just had this image printed at 18×12 inches as a digital c-type print on lustre paper. The shot was taken at ISO 1000 and you cannot see a spec of noise in the final print. The detail level is also great, you can see every leaf. The image was taken with the 18mm Fuji XF lens at f/2.5....

Aspects of Digital Photography focusing on the Fuji X-Pro 1, Fuji X-E1 and X100s - rumors, reviews, samples and more.

The most comprehensive Collection on Fuji X-Pro1 and X-E1 articles, reviews and X-Pro1 Photographer on the Web!

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The woman in the image is the Danish model Ann we had taken with us to Sicily in May 2011 for the Overgaard Advanced Workshop. So in this case I know her but it is not a staged photograph.

She had a very nice wardrobe with her and the first evening after we had arrived we went out to have dinner araound 19:00 and she was waring this outfit. I noticed that when a tall blond woman elegantly dressed walked in the streets of Palermo, the men would stop what they were doing and admire the woman with respect.

Thorsten Overgaard is a Danish feature writer and photographer who contributes stories and unique branding to magazines, newspapers and companies through exclusive and positive articles and photos.

...let me start with the Fuji X-E1. Fuji got me this camera and the 18-55 f2.8-f4 zoom just a few days before we left for New York, so this is really my very first experience with this camera. I saw the camera at Photokina and was immediately very anxious to test this one out, the reason ? very simple, it’s actually almost a X-Pro1 but for less money…. and yes it does miss some features and it’s a bit smaller, but it has a build in flash (which I call the “Wall-E” strobe because it looks a lot like Wall-E) and it keeps the same image quality from the X-Pro1, which you probably already know is awesome. The moment I got the X-pro1 I was in love with the camera, for street photography and any photography where you don’t want to be noticed it’s a great “stealth camera”, I always call it my “wolf in sheep clothes”. There was one thing I really wished for in the system and that was a zoom lens… well Fuji got one (actually more now), for this trip I got the 18-55 with me which is a great walk around lens and gives you a very nice reach. The lens is relatively light stark starting at f2.8 and ending on f4 at the long end. I know that some people will start with “why not a constant f2.8?” but do remember that if you want that the lens would be a lot heavier and bigger and for most situations the f2.8-f4.0 coupled with the great noise performance in the X-E1 and X-pro1 actually work perfectly. Now one of the really nice things about the 18-55 is the fact that’s is also a lens with stabilization, and I can report that it works really well. I don’t know how many stops it will really do, but trust me when I say…. “it works really well”. So how do I like the Fuji X-E1. Well you know from me that I’m always doing reviews from a standpoint of using the camera and not the pixelpeeping and 1:1 comparisons (there are many sites for that) so here is my personal opinion. I love the build in strobe, when shooting the camera for private use the build in strobe is great when you take for example a shot in a restaurant where you want your group to stand out and lower the ambient, it’s also great as fill in flash outside and… well where you normally also use an on camera strobe for. Also the speed of the camera is great, the viewfinder is very nice, it responds very quickly and it’s sharp enough to judge images. Working with the X-E1 on location is great, focus locks on VERY quickly, this was also a huge difference on the X-Pro1 after the 2.0 upgrade by the way. The image quality is just jaw dropping, the image quality of the X-E1 is without any doubt just as good as the X-Pro1. The only thing you have to note is that when importing the files into Lightroom all images come in cropped to 16:9 mode, so when you import make sure you make a new crop to 100% and sync that to all images.....

Jack Picone, photojournalist and social documentary photographer - “My mantra is’ slow is fast’ – you look, you think, you wait and then you make the picture. I like the psychology of the X-Pro1…it allows me to connect with the people I am photographing”. Jack Picone is another award-winning Australian photojournalist. Jack spent a decade covering the world's conflict zones including Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda and Palestine, but this work is only partly representative of his oeuvre, which also involves social documentary projects and workshops. He says the X-Pro1 is a “quiet camera, very subtle. I can use it on the streets or with people in sensitive situations and it is such an understated retro design that people don’t react to it. It isn’t like a DSLR, which is like a house brick that is in front of your face. With this camera people either ignore you or if they do take notice of you they don’t see you as a professional photographer, they see you as a human being. Being able to strike a rapport with people in a more seamless way is, for me, poetry”....

This article was originally posted in a series of 10 mini-exerpts back in the very early days of the site; Google Analytics tells me that it was hardly viewed, which is probably a shame – so I’ve re-packaged, updated and re-presented it again here as a monster all-in-one reference. Enjoy. MT

Great Fuji X-Pro1 Shots by a young Swedish Photographer

Just as with wildlife photography it is the shots that show behaviour, rather than the pure record pictures, that work best in street photography. To show that behaviour clearly, so that the viewer can recognise what is going on, you have to pick your moment carefully. You have to show the moment in which the action happens.
Decisive moment? This moment is often called ‘the decisive moment’, but the phrase is so over burdened with history and expectation that I prefer to just call it ‘the right moment’.

Amazing Photos by Hugo Poon | Fuji X-Pro1